


Wrong Turns

by eleanor_lavish, thepsychicclam



Series: Valiant Effort [22]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:47:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/pseuds/thepsychicclam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy finds out that nothing fucking matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Turns

**Author's Note:**

> Written by EL.

Orlando smelled different. That should have been Billy's first clue. Orlando always smelled musky, earthy, real. He never wore cologne. Nothing more than Old Spice deodorant. Now, Orli smelled cheap, covered in expensive scents.

"You smell like a French whore," he said, only half joking.

"Sorry if I'm offending you," Orlando replied to the wall. He didn't look at Billy anymore either. He was laying on the couch in a navy T-shirt worn almost sheer, the beer in his hand forming a damp circle where it rested on his thigh. "'M showering before rehearsal, alright?"

"Don't bother, mate. Never know when some butch might mistake you for a pretty little girl and take you away from all this." Billy waved his arm around dramatically. "And don't bother cleaning a fucking dish either. Wouldn't want to interrupt your fucking beauty rest."

Orlando's face grew stony as Billy spoke, mouth set in a thin line. But he still never looked up from his spot on the wall. _Why won't he just fucking look at me?_

"ORLANDO!" Billy's shout took them both by surprise. Orlando finally reacted though, getting off the couch and grabbing his coat in one fluid motion. Billy reached for his arm as Orli touched the doorknob but was thrown back a step by the ferocity with which Orlando recoiled from his hand.

"Ten o'clock. I'll be there." Orlando spoke to the doorknob, his voice coming as thin as his shirt, almost hoarse. The _angerworryfrustration_ feeling that had been suffocating Billy for weeks leaned slightly toward worry until he heard Orli muttering under his breath, "I'm always there you fucking asshole", as the door slammed behind him. Then he was firmly back at anger.

"Why do you do that?" Billy wheeled at the sound of Dom's voice from the hallway.

"Why do I DO anything?" Billy thumped around the kitchen, forcing cereal boxes and beer bottles into the trashcan. "Why don't I just disappear for days like you and Orli? Would that be helpful? Or maybe I should just do nothing at all, not even eat, like Lijah," (he allowed himself a satisfied smirk as Dom winced), "because that is oh so fucking helpful Dom." The dishes clattered noisily as he shoved them into cabinets dirtier than they were.

"He's having a hard time of it, mate. Just let up a bit."

Billy stopped with his hands full of grimy spoons and looked at Dom with eyebrows raised. " _He's_ having a hard time of it?! Oh yes, Dom, because being pretty and sitting on one's arse is so very fucking taxing. I'm sorry he has to get his nails dirty at the restaurant, but let's remember who pays the fucking bills around here. Without me, we couldn't have a fucking lease or any hot water in that shower." He could hear himself getting louder, could feel his frustration causing him to grip the spoons so hard the handles left red dents in his palms. Dom just stood there with his arms crossed looking like a prat. " _I_ am the one who spent the last three weeks with no sleep, between work and studio time and writing. _I_ am the one who actually sat down with Sean and organized this whole fucking mess. _You_ certainly didn't lift a bloody finger, did you? And _he,_ " motioning to the now empty couch, "was off every night having a fan-fucking-tastic time, if the smell of him is any indication."

"This isn't the life he imagined here." Dom's voice was soft, placating.

"What? With the actual _work_? I know. Bummer, right?"

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

"What do you mean, Dommie? No instant fame? Living in squalor? He wants to blame me for that, fine." Billy dropped the spoons into the sink where they clanged into mugs lined with three-day-old coffee sludge. He was overcome with the urge to throw them one by one across the room at Dom. He gripped the old iron sink with white knuckles until the urge passed. "No one made him come."

Dom snorted. Billy spun to face him.

"What?"

"YOU came. We came because YOU came, you asshole. HE came because you came."

"He came because he thought I could make him famous."

"Bullshit. If Orli wanted to be famous he would have stayed in theater. You know how many agents he had knocking at our door in London?"

 _Agents_? Billy's head spun. _Orli had the chance for a real acting career and he choose..._

Dom stepped right into Billy's air space, unflinching as Billy blinked, processing. "He chose you, you selfish motherfucker."

"I never asked him to."

"You never had to. He loves you and you know it. He thought this would be it. He thought you might let him in if he gave up everything, proved himself to you."

"I never promised him anything, Dom." Billy tried to keep his breaths even, but it was hard. They never talked about this. Never. He couldn't believe Dom was saying this to him. Didn't he get it? Dom of all people, telling him he was an asshole for not loving what was right in front of him. Fucking hypocrite.

"He LOVES you, you arrogant arse! He loves you and it's killing him!"

"Dying men don't usually spend their nights wrapped around leggy brunettes!" Billy was shouting now, almost spitting the words out onto Dom.

"You have no idea where he goes," Dom's voice was ultra-controlled, growling. Like he was trying his damndest not to get angry. Billy's frustration bubbled under his skin. Living with them all had been a nightmare recently. They were all like emotionless Stepford zombies, without the pleasant programming. He just wanted someone to do something. Get fucking MAD! Yell! Throw shit! _Fucking do something_!

"You're right. I've no clue. Why don't you tell me Dominic, since you and the Ice Queen are the all Knowing King and Queen of the Universe!" Dom had been spending all his time with Miranda and Billy barely knew her. But he knew he didn't like her. She was beautiful, but she was cold. Ice cold.

"It's not that big a secret, you fucker. If you want to know so badly, why don't you ask him?" Dom's growl increased to a dull roar. That was more like it. This was a fight. Billy had been aching for a fight.

"Ah yes, why didn't I think of that? Orlando, love, what lowlife establishment have you visited this evening? At least tell me you were getting paid and not paying for it. Might as well make something off that pretty mug of yours."

He was on the floor before the hit even registered. The left side of his face was hot, blood pooling in what was sure to be a perfect shiner in the morning. "You don't deserve him."

Dom was out the door before Billy was on his feet.

**

He didn't mean to follow Orlando. He really didn't. He was piss drunk that night, stumbling out of McAlister's on Avenue C. Or getting thrown out. It was the third bar that night Billy had tried to start a fight in, and he was finding the bartenders in SoHo a tad fucking cautious. He missed Glasgow. The bartenders there knew when a fight was needed to cleanse the soul. Every bartender he knew in Scotland took black eyes with a grain of salt. Billy was really starting to fucking hate New York.

He watched from the corner, propped up on the dirty brick wall, as Orli descended to the 6 train. Uptown. Billy wanted to call out after him, tell him they lived _downtown, you fucking wanker,_ but he was afraid at this point he was more likely to boot on the sidewalk if he opened his mouth. So he followed Orli down to the platform. The train was pulling up just as Orli hit the platform and Billy watched as he swayed on his feet, hesitating just a second before climbing aboard. Billy got on the next car.

He stuck his head out of the car at each stop, watching for Orli, wondering where the fuck he was heading so far uptown. They didn't know anyone uptown. Liv lived in Tribeca for fuck's sake. Billy's brain was cloudy. He kept muttering "can't lose him; can't lose him" over and over as he leaned heavily into the doors of the subway car. The car was pretty empty at this hour on a weekday night, but the two older women at the end of the car eyed him nervously. He flipped them off as they turned their heads.

Orli finally got off at 86th street and began walking toward the park. His head was down, shoulders hunched, like he was heading for a funeral, or a fight he couldn't win. Billy had seen that walk for years in the poor ex-miners populating barstools back home. Defeated. Orlando walked like he was defeated. Billy watched as Orlando barely registered the woman with the dog who nearly ran him over as he rounded Madison. He certainly didn't notice the quiet figure stalking half a block behind, sobering quickly in the sting of the cool spring night. _Where are you going, love? Where are you going?_ But as Orli's pace slowed, stopping in front of a gorgeous stone building, doorman in glimmering brass buttons holding the door open with a sad familiarity, Billy felt a sudden cold suck the air from his lungs.

He knew this place. Oh God, he knew this place. This wasn't fucking happening. He ducked around the corner onto 83rd street as the doorman looked in his direction, wrapping his arms around his chest and squeezing himself tightly, dizzy from the lack of air. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, taking gulps of air that stung his lips and throat. _I know your dirty little secret now, don't I, Orli? I know I know I know._ Through the haze of the alcohol still flowing freely in his veins, lightheaded and hotheaded, his brain kept spitting bile. _Slut, pretty boy, cunt,_ it ran through all the words Billy had thought the first time he saw Orli, all those years ago, lounging at the bar. _Whore. Just here for a fuck and some pocket change._ His cheeks were burning now, a fight itching just under his skin. _Always go with first impressions. Da said. Should have listened._

**

He stayed there nearly two hours. After twenty minutes, his brain stopped registering anything outside the scenes he was picturing in his head. Bean's black leather couch, Orli on his knees, strange fingers pulling at the curls at Orli's neck. Did he whisper in Bean's neck, like he did to Billy, words of devotion that were obviously lies? Were they laughing at him, up there in their fancy sheets, toasting his ignorance with glasses of champagne? Billy's thoughts became viscous, sticky, unnavigable. I bet they're plotting now, Orli bending under him. I wonder if he makes the same noises. _They want me out. He's leaving the band. I told him no, not this way. I should go home, why should I care, who does he think he is, how could he do this to us?_

When he heard Orli's familiar rasp ("Been waiting for me, then?") he wasn't even surprised.

"How long?" Billy couldn't even look at him, pants slung low on his hips, lips swollen from. Jesus. Billy's hands were shaking. The whole world seemed loud in his ears. "How fucking long, Orli?" The words sounded harsher than he'd intended. His throat was closing up.

"Few months, I guess." Orlando sounded obscenely calm, and very far away.

"Why? You didn't have to."

"Yeah, I did. I'm the whore remember? I'm the only one with any follow-through." And he laughed. Orlando was laughing.

Billy lunged at him, catching him by the neck. He threw Orlando against the wall and drew his right arm back in preparation for the fight, the showdown. It would be rough and hard and in the street, like back home. This would settle it once and for all.

But Orlando just went limp in his hands. He winced, but only a little, like a man who has resigned himself to getting the shit kicked out of him. Orli was never that man. Never. Not until now.

Billy paused, his entire body taut with _worryfrustrationanger_. "Hit me! Hit me you cocksucking prick!" He screamed it into Orlando's placid face. His fingers tightened around Orli's neck, pushing him to react. He knew they would leave marks, like deformed hickies.

"Why?" Orlando's eyes were big as saucers, blinking so, so slowly.

"What the fuck are you on?" Because this wasn't normal. This wasn't Orlando. Orlando didn't ask why. Orlando protected himself. He seemed to be leaning into Billy's grip, not away, like Billy was holding him upright. Orlando didn't fucking... He shook the images away.

The laugh was the same this time, and Billy noticed how hollow it was. Nothing in Orli's face matched-the saucer eyes, the ink-blue bruises on his cheek, the twisted smile. "Nothing. Everything." Slow blink. "Bean hooks me up with a good fix before I hook him up, y'know?" Another slow blink. "What the fuck does it matter, anyway?" The words were slurred, the question asked with no real interest in the answer.

And when Billy couldn't think of an answer that didn't start with You're the only thing that matters, he lowered his fist and dropped his hand from Orli's collar, watching him stagger from the sudden loss of balance. "Doesn't matter." And Orlando laughed again.

The walk home took nearly an hour, but no one took notice of Billy, wrapped in his own pain, wishing the itch would come back and replace the numbness that had settled over his body.

No one ever took notice of Billy.

 

**

He heard her before he saw her, a high-pitched laugh wafting into the hallway outside the door. He paused for a long moment, thought about leaving, but he was so tired, so drained of... everything. It didn't matter.

Miranda, Dom, Orli, himself. What the fuck did it matter?

"Hey," Dom stopped him on his walk through the kitchen. Miranda stood near the fridge, eyes wide open, her long hair down, covering her bare arms dotted with freckles. She was scrutinizing him again, he could feel it. Not that he cared much at the moment. It was nice that anyone noticed him actually.

"Heeey." Dom pulled the word out as he reached for Billy's arm. He looked boneless in the kitchen chair, his body splayed almost obscenely. "C'mere."

Ordinarily Billy would have taken the piss out of Dom for being so fucked up, but Billy couldn't even muster the energy to avoid Dom's hand. He bumped into Dom's shoulder, Dom's hand holding his wrist and rubbing small circles into the his palm and smarted at the realization that this was the first time in weeks he'd touched any of his bandmates without anger.

"Long night." Billy's eyes closed as he felt the unfamiliar itch of tears build.

"Mmmm," Dom's fingers continued in their soothing motion.

Miranda turned back to the fridge. "Care for a drink, then?"

Billy didn't want one. He really just wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head and hope that he would wake with Orlando pressed up next to him-or better yet wake up back in Glasgow before the band, before the fall, and find it was the morning after one of his and Orli's all night gabfests-find that this whole bloody mess was just a dream.

"Sure."

He reluctantly pulled his hand from Dom's and shrugged out of his coat as Miranda poured him a short whiskey. Dom's fish, the only things that seemed to be thriving in this godforsaken place, swam in lazy circles on the small table next to the window. Billy watched as the yellow one with the red stripe (named Chairman Mao by Dom) swam the same route through the tank over and over. _Stupid lucky bastard_ , Billy thought.

"Drink up." Miranda stood right in front of him. Billy noted that her fingers were indeed ice cold when he took the glass from her. He swallowed the whiskey warm and tried to shake off her stare, made even more unsettling by the sly grin she was giving him. Billy had never even seen her teeth before.

He felt a sudden need to be out of that room. ""M going to the loo. Shower." And he fled down the hall.

The water felt jarring on his skin, the warmth seeping in to warm him from the inside out. He hadn't realized how cold it was on his walk home. He wondered with a start if Orlando was still there, on that corner, laughing at him. If he would even care about the cold. About anything. Orli, whywhywhy. Did I push you into this? Do you hate me? Do you love him? Do you understand what you're doing to me? Are you doing it on purpose? Are you really that sadistic a cunt? Are you gone forever? Did you really leave all that for me? Who the fuck do you think you are?

The thoughts ran one into another until they were one long thought. Billy's brain was slowly getting warm along with his body. He felt a tingle start at the base of his neck and work it's way slowly down his back, through his arms to his fingertips. Suddenly, he was aware of the tiny individual drops of water hitting his body. The warm had separated itself out into cold and scaldingly hot. He jumped out of the shower in surprise, losing balance as the tingle reached his knees. Leaning on the wall, Billy was mesmerized by the feeling of the ancient crackling wallpaper against his bare skin. The _what the fuck?_ his brain managed to manufacture was quickly swallowed up with _Orlando_ and _gorgeous_ and _so long_ and _why me?_ and _need to write this down in a song._

He stumbled naked from the bathroom, moaning slightly at the change in texture on his bare feet from the cold of the bathroom tile to the smooth hardwood of the hallway. The door to the bedroom swung open and Miranda stood against the jam in nothing but white panties, hair covering her breasts like a pornographic Venus de Milo.

Billy watched in amazement as his hands reached out to run themselves through the silky strands. His body seemed to be working independent of his brain, but at the same time every nerve ending was in overdrive, shooting information at him faster than he could process. The numb from his walk home after Orlando had been replaced with constant static.

"What did you do to me?" Billy wasn't angry. He didn't think he was capable of angry at the moment. He was just...curious.

Miranda let out a low throaty laugh and took his hand from her hair, winding their fingers together. His skin burned from the cold of them. "You don't like me very much." She pulled him gently into the room.

"I like you just fine," he replied stupidly as she walked around behind him, closing the door.

It was only then that he saw Dom.

Dom. Naked. Body all sinew and ink, just like Billy would have imagined. Just like a rock star. He was lying on Billy's bed, arms pulled tight over his head, wrists tied with a black ladies scarf to the useless iron radiator on the wall. His eyes were closed, but Billy could tell he wasn't asleep as his breathing was coming in short, hollow gulps. And his cock...

"Fuck." The word was barely audible as Billy felt his skin go hotcoldhotcold then flash to hot as Miranda pressed up against his back, her chin resting lightly on his shoulder.

"Isn't he beautiful like that? Ready for anything."

He felt it coming, felt it as her arms snaked around his waist, but Billy was completely unprepared for the jolt of over stimulation as Miranda's fingers closed around him. Hips bucking forward, he barely contained a jagged sob. It was only then that Billy finally registered how naked he was, how exposed, but it had been so long, so fucking long since any hand but his own had been there that it didn't much matter. _Orli was right then. Doesn't fucking matter._ And Billy's hollow laugh echoed Orlando's.

At the sound, Dom's eyes eased open. "Billy?"

Miranda answered for him, still stroking Billy's cock gently. "Brought you a friend, love. I know how you love to watch." She used the hand on his hip to inch Billy further into the bedroom, stopping mere inches from the mattress on the floor. He was almost standing on Dom's pillow. Dom was looking up at them, at Billy's hitching chest, Miranda's fingers working him. Billy saw that his eyes were almost slate gray, pupils dilated so that he blinked even the dim of the room. "I'm going to suck him off for you."

And before Billy's body could register what was happening, Miranda had knelt down on the pillow on the other side of Dom's head and was leaning in, over Dom's wide eyed face, and running the length of her tongue up Billy's shaft. Billy cried out incoherently as she slowly drew him in, hearing Dom's raspy gasp beneath him. Miranda's hands might be cold, but her mouth was like fire on Billy's skin. Opening his eyes, he looked down to see that one of his hands was fisted tightly in Miranda's hair. She moved expertly, one hand still on Billy's hip, one at the base of his cock, adding a snap or flick. He could see Dom's face contorting beneath them, mouthing curses as he strained against the ties binding him. The static in Billy's head turned up as the blood pumped faster through his veins until it sounded like a swarm of locusts. His body moved of its own accord, fucking Miranda's mouth with harsh strokes.

It wasn't until he heard Dom's strangled sob, "Miranda, fuck, please!", that he realized she hadn't touched him once since Billy had been in the room. He had been hard then, and now... "Jesus fuck, Dommie." Billy couldn't contain the words as he watched Dom's cock, harder now, if that was possible, slick and wet with precum, streaking his stomach with every failed attempt to loose himself.

He'd expected Miranda to respond to Dom's cry, to stop, to let him loose, to turn her attention back to him, but she barely slowed her slick strokes as she readjusted herself, wigging free of her underwear and moving to straddle Dom's abdomen. Billy watched wide-eyed, the static drowning out Dom's pleadings below, as Miranda used one hand with her mouth on Billy's cock and the other to help guide herself onto Dom's, his hips bucking up roughly to meet her. As Billy watched Dom's cock disappear inside her, he felt himself begin to unravel, felt the world falling away, like the static was now a deafening waterfall set to drown him. He came with a jolt into Miranda's pretty mouth, the aftershocks causing him to stumble back and fall to his knees. There was no noise in his ears now beyond the slap of skin on skin and Dom's trembling moans as he arched into Miranda. Neither of them even glanced his way as he stood awkwardly and headed for the bathroom to clean himself off.

The static was gone entirely now and all Billy could hear was Orlando's hollow laugh.

 

~Fin  



End file.
